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Cheap Speed Challenge: Best car for practical fun?

The Cars.com/USA TODAY/MotorWeek Cheap Speed Challenge was the most fun yet, pitting quick, good-handling and, generally speaking, affordable and practical cars against one another on the road and at he track.

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Cheap Speed Challenge: Best car for practical fun?

Check out Cars.com's $30,000 Cheap Speed Challenge, where we teamed up with USA Today and "MotorWeek," pitting eight affordable performance-oriented cars against one another to determine the biggest bang for your buck.

We wanted to see which automakers could provide honest, sporty performance in a car you might actually be able to afford — and further, to see how practical it would be in daily duty.

Face it, it's no trick to tickle every enthusiast's nerve with a $70,000 Jaguar F-type. But it's a stunning engineering accomplishment to come close for less than half that price — and throw in a back seat and cargo space for good measure.

The Cheap Speed Challengers ranged from the diminutive Scion FR-S sports coupe that barely has a back seat, to the bigger and very powerful Subaru WRX four-door sedan with room enough in front and back to tote friends or family and to be your only car.

Styling ranged from the out-there looks of WRX and Nissan Juke Nismo to the ordinariness of the Kia Forte5 hatchback.

The cars varied almost unimaginably; no commodity cars here.

We deliberately excluded pure two-seaters, such as the Mazda MX-5 Miata, because we wanted to test cars with at least a modicum of practicality.

What we didn't expect — Challenge judges being the sort of folks who often drive 'em like we stole 'em — was the terrific fuel mileage we got. Four of the eight Challengers had tallies in our real-world mileage test of more than 220 miles of highway, suburban and a little city driving that was higher than those cars' official EPA highway rating. The other four weren't far off. That surprise and made the cars fit the "cheap" part of the Cheap Speed formula better than expected.

The nature of the cars also begged for some time on a racetrack to sort the truly sporty from the pretenders. The Autobahn Country Club track here was just the ticket.

Ten were invited; eight made it.

Mini said it couldn't find a Cooper priced less than the $30,000 cap. And the Honda Civic Si coupe suffered a ruined tire that couldn't be replaced in time for the track, which excluded it from the score card.

We did drive the Honda on a regular route, back-to-back with the other contenders. And we had our "real person" cycle through it.

We suspect it would have finished high if it had been available for track time to compare to the others there.

Who buys such cars? Along with the expert judges, all of our Challenges include, as a reality check, a consumer judge in the market for the type of vehicle being tested. And in this case, our "real person" is a perfect example of the buyer for such cars:

Joe Weiss, 38, who lives in Chicago — not the suburbs, the South Loop. He works for a start-up social media company.

He drives a 2010 Mini Cooper S and is planning to replace it with exactly the sort of car in our Cheap Speed Challenge.

He also promised his fiancée, Erica Reynders, that he'd commit to an earlier wedding date if she would learn how to drive a manual transmission and agree their car would be a stick.

"Never should have done it. Now I can't b.s. her anymore. She took to it like crazy," he said.

The eight Challenge cars prove it's possible to buy a car for less than $30,000 that's extraordinarily fun, still more-or-less handy enough to use as a daily driver and notably easy on fuel.

It also illustrates that there's no one best way to accomplish that.

Each car was scored in 10 categories, including track manners, by veteran auto journalists and by Weiss. Points also were given for drag-strip acceleration and fuel economy.

The overall winner in the scoring was the 2015 Volkswagen GTI, and Weiss' personal choice was the Subaru WRX. — see here for details of the competition, the final ranking and the judges' evaluation of each car.

Here are some personal thoughts on each model, written before the overall scores were tabulated, presented in alphabetical order:

• 2014 Fiat 500 Abarth ($25,995): Cramped, tech-deficient, pricey for what you get. Five-speed stick in a world of six-speeds. Sound and fury signifying very little. Hit the showers, buddy.

• 2015 Subaru WRX ($29,290): Roomy enough to be your only car. It has a lot more power than the others in the Challenge and could hit 100 mph in sections where the others could manage 90 to 95 mph. Corner-calming, all-wheel drive seems to work well on the racetrack.

But after the track workout — endured by all the Cheap Speed contenders — the WRX brakes were permanently weakened and borderline unsafe in regular driving. The clutch became harder to push and engagement became increasingly jerky.

The WRX was a pre-production car, so some parts might have been a bit off-measure. But problems with serious systems such as brakes and clutch leave us quite wary.

• 2015 Volkswagen Golf GTI S ($26,915): Best all-around sport sedan in the group. Very quick, solid performer on the track, laudable road manners in daily driving. Seems the very definition of what a modern, affordable, practical — yet very sporty — vehicle should be.

The Volkswagen GTI behaves more like a midsize performance sedan than a sporty compact. You have to be OK with checked cloth upholstery, though, which didn't appeal to all. Rear leg space was acceptable but not generous. (Photo: Evan Sears, Cars.com)

Performance enthusiasts may love manuals, but the DSG (dual-shift gearbox) automatic in the Volkswagen GTI is pretty good at shifting when and how you want, keeping the 210-hp, 2-liter, turbocharged four-cylinder in its power band. (Photo: Evan Sears, Cars.com)

The Subaru WRX is the perfect compromise car with plenty of room in the back for friends or kids, a full-size trunk and good resale value in addition to its fun-when-you-want drivetrain. (Photo: Evan Sears, Cars.com)

The 2014 Ford Fiesta ST was tons of fun at the Autobahn Country Club race track in Joliet, Ill., where you could push it hard and expect it to stay under control. The suspension that's too stiff on the road was right-on for the track. (Photo: Evan Sears, Cars.com)

The 2014 Kia Forte5 SX landed in fourth place, just two points (out of 1,000) behind the Ford Fiesta ST, even though judges found lots to criticize about the Kia and less about the Ford. (Photo: Evan Sears, Cars.com)

A few years ago, our judges wouldn’t have dreamed of putting a Kia on a racetrack. Some judges thought it was still a bad idea because of the car's body roll, balky transmission and power that felt less than its 201-hp rating. (Photo: Evan Sears, Cars.com)

The Kia Forte5's six-speed automatic didn't downshift when it should have on the track, but kept the 1.6-liter turbo four boiling along just fine in brisk street driving. Engine's rated 201 hp, and burns regular in a field dominated by premium swillers.
(Photo: Evan Sears, Cars.com)

Even though the Challenge focused on speed and sportiness, the Kia Forte5's overall usefulness, and decent street behavior, went a long way towards balancing the ungainly race track comportment.
(Photo: Evan Sears, Cars.com)

Judges said the Scion FR-S has responsive handling that most in this group can only dream about. It's strong evidence that rear-wheel drive still handles better than the front-drive layout of most Challenger cars. (Photo: Evan Sears, Cars.com)

The Scion FR-S has a 2-liter, non-turbo four cylinder rated 200 hp. That's not shabby, but the car seemed to want more oomph. FR-S has a nice, even power band, though, and the manual transmission gear ratios are spot-on and for the engine.
(Photo: Evan Sears, Cars.com)

The Veloster Turbo is an oddball three-door coupe, with the small third door on the passenger's side -- usually the curb side, for safer loading, unloading of people and stuff. Makes it useful for kids. None of which did much to boost its track performance. (Photo: Evan Sears, Cars.com)

The Hyundai Veloster was predictable on the track, so was easy to flog to its limits. They just weren't very high. Short-throw manual shifter was a delight on and off the track.
(Photo: Evan Sears, Cars.com)

Nissan Juke Nismo's Alcantara simulated suede delighted some judges. Tall side bolsters on the seats didn't, because they made it hard to hop in and out - somthing you'd do a lot in normal use. (Photo: Evan Sears, Cars.com)

Nissan Juke Nismo's 197-hp, 1.6-liter turbo four generated a handful of handling challenges, seeming to enjoy handing the driver turbo lag and torque steer simultaneously. No complaints about the amount of power, just the way it was delivered in some cases. (Photo: Evan Sears, Cars.com)

At best, the Fiat 500 Abarth lives up to one judge's summary that it's an absolute joy on the road course, with unexpected levels of cornering grip and stopping power that give this weird little car surprising amounts of street cred. But not all judges agreed with that. (Photo: Evan Sears, Cars.com)

Off the track, the Fiat 500 Abarth is less confident in every regard: braking, acceleration and handling. The manual shifter, though well-positioned, stirs only five speeds instead of the six in the other Challengers. (Photo: Evan Sears, Cars.com)

As a practical matter, the tires on the Fiat 500 Abarth impressed the judges. The grippy Pirelli P Zero Nero tires proved the Abarth can handle a turn on a racetrack, and replacements cost less than $100 apiece. (Photo: Evan Sears, Cars.com)

Each car was scored in 10 categories by veteran auto journalists and by our prospective buyer. Points also were given for drag-strip performance, general feel on the road course and fuel economy. They're shown at the Autobahn Country Club, a private course at Joliet, Ill. (Photo: Evan Sears, Cars.com)

The eight Challenge cars prove it’s possible to buy a car for less than $30,000 that’s extraordinarily fun and more-or-less handy enough to use as a daily driver. And it illustrates that there’s no one best way to execute that sort of car. Challengers ranged from tiny to roomy, had front-drive, rear-drive, all-wheel drive, used automatic and manual gearboxes. (Photo: Evan Sears, Cars.com)